The Lady Anne. Again, Lavender thought. ‘Why is Mr Sculthorpe not buried with his wife? I understand she died last August.’
Liquorish’s mouth set in a thin line of disapproval before he answered. ‘She isn’t buried here,’ he said. ‘She had expressed a wish to be taken home to be buried, and that’s what Mr Sculthorpe did.’
‘What, to Ireland?’ Lavender asked, sharply.
‘No, Mrs Sculthorpe was from London, and she wanted to be laid to rest there. This was a ridiculous notion if you ask me, but he took her body back to be buried. Reverend Allingham warned Sculthorpe he was too elderly to undertake such a long and distressing journey, but he insisted. I understand his neighbour Miss Bennett took care of his backward son while he was gone. When Mr Sculthorpe was murdered we organised a simple ceremony here after the inquest.’
Lavender nodded. A cold breeze tugged at their hats and flapped their coat-tails.
‘How well did you know William Sculthorpe?’
Liquorish stiffened. ‘I didn’t know him at all. He never attended church and my farm is several miles away in Rockingham. Our paths never crossed but as the local churchwarden I was involved in the arrangements for his funeral.’
‘You said your paths never crossed, Mr Liquorish, but I understand you argued with him in the street the week before he died. What was that about?’
‘I have already explained this to Constable Clancy.’ Liquorish’s voice turned to ice and his face darkened with anger. ‘I simply tried to persuade him to come to church. A slothful attitude to church attendance is an affront to God. I was concerned that a man of his age should make his peace with God before it was too late, and I was right. Sculthorpe died without God’s blessing and forgiveness.’
Lavender’s eyes narrowed. Liquorish avoided his gaze. ‘I gather you didn’t know that William Sculthorpe and his family were Catholics who worshipped quietly at home?’
Liquorish gasped and disapproval followed by anger flashed across his face. ‘No, I was not aware of that – and neither to my knowledge were the Reverend Allingham or the Lady Anne. I must inform them immediately.’
Lavender opened his mouth to ask another question, but Liquorish hadn’t finished.
‘Why, this is the essence of Lucifer! Sculthorpe’s lunatic son must be baptised into the Anglican Church. We watchdogs of the fold cannot be silent with the evil of popery in our midst.’
A wave of disgust swept through Lavender but he held back the angry retort that leapt to his own lips. He was suddenly sick of Caleb Liquorish. ‘Take me to the vestry,’ he snapped. ‘I wish to see the church registers.’
Liquorish unlocked the gloomy vestry, gave him a pile of dusty registers and left him alone to read them. Lavender pulled up a chair at the desk and lit a candle. As he flicked through the birth, death and marriage registers of the Parish of St Mary Magdalene the first thing that struck him was how rarely the Reverend Allingham had been called upon to administer to the needs of his flock. There had only been two weddings since Christmas. Lavender’s maternal grandfather had been the popular Dean of St Saviour and St Mary Overie in Southwark before his retirement and not a week had gone by without him being called upon to perform marriages and baptisms. Of course, Southwark was a far larger and more overcrowded parish but it didn’t look like business had been brisk for the vicar of Cottingham and Middleton over the last year.
As Lavender turned back the pages of the fusty old registers, he saw several names he recognised. Mrs Tilley at the bakehouse had an extensive family within the community – the name Tilley cropped up frequently in the registers. Jed Sawyer had married in the church eight years ago and his two children had been baptised there. The labourer Harry Goode had married at St Mary Magdalene ten years ago and, according to the baptism register, he and his wife already had six children – including a set of twins. Some woman called Martha Bunning had died a couple of years ago. Was she the wife of Frank Bunning, the landlord of The Woolpack, perhaps? Or maybe the mother of Bunning’s nephew Isaac?
Lavender stopped speculating, refocused on his task and looked for names to match the initials J.W. A young woman called Jane Webb had borne two illegitimate children in the parish and both bore her surname, but apart from her the only other family whose surname began with a ‘W ’ were the Wynns – and none of them had a first initial ‘J’.
Disappointed, he sighed and closed the tattered covers of the registers. Pulling on his gloves and hat, he left the vestry. Liquorish and the carpenter were still in the church. Lavender took Liquorish aside and asked him about the whereabouts of the woman called Jane Webb and the Wynn family.
‘Jane Webb left the area last summer,’ Liquorish informed him with a sneer. ‘And she took her bastards along with her. She went to Coventry, I understand. We were glad to see her go. There’s no place in Cottingham for women with loose morals and fallen ways. As for the Wynns, well, there’s only old Simon and his wife left. They’re both elderly and in the poorhouse at the edge of the village.’
Lavender thanked him and took his leave, grateful to be back outside in the fresh air, away from the stench of bigotry that swirled around Caleb Liquorish like flies buzzing over a carcass.
Chapter Ten
Lavender decided to take the path over the top fields along the ridge in order to return to The Woolpack. He estimated it would bring him out onto the steep hill, with the school and the lime kiln, where they had first ridden into Middleton earlier that morning.
The path wound through the meadow and entered a copse of elms. The new foliage on the trees formed a pale green haze that blurred the sharp angles and outlines of the twigs. As the last of the daylight filtered through the tree canopy it created a dappled effect on the carpet of dead leaves covering his path.
To his left, a branch cracked beneath the foot of a heavy animal. Deer? He glanced up and glimpsed the shadowy figure of a man disappear behind the tree trunks and into the dense undergrowth. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He paused for a moment, then scoffed at his own foolishness. I’ve spent too much time dodging cut-throats and silk-snatchers in London, he decided. It was probably just an innocent farm labourer on his way home from the fields.
He didn’t see a soul during the rest of his walk and he welcomed the peace and isolation – it gave him time to think. He hoped Woods had experienced better luck with his investigation into the origins of the mysterious cloth bag.
As he had expected, the path brought him to the steep hill at the far side of Middleton near the village school. He knew the pupils would have long since departed but candlelight still glimmered in the window. Suddenly, he had an idea. He leapt up the steps of the schoolhouse and rapped on the door.
A blast of hot air and the smell of tobacco smoke made Lavender blink when the door finally opened. A bald, fat man in his shirt sleeves with a brightly checked waistcoat stretched across his rotund belly clutched a pipe in one ink-stained hand and held the door open with the other.
‘Are you the schoolmaster? I’m Detective Stephen Lavender. I’m investigating the murder of William Sculthorpe.’
‘Ah, yes, poor old fellow,’ said the man. ‘I’m Mr Howard, the schoolmaster. How can I help you?’
If Mr Howard was surprised by Lavender’s request to see the school register, he didn’t show it. He led Lavender into the warm schoolroom, forced his bulk down into his chair and slid the register across the desk to the detective. A pile of papers, covered with childish scrawl, sat on the corner of the desk, a quill abandoned and dripping by their side. Howard puffed on his pipe while Lavender scanned through the names in the book.
It didn’t take him long to go through the register. The school only had ten pupils and the only boy with a surname starting with ‘W ’ was John Debussy Wallace, aged twelve.
‘Is this Jack Wallace, the son of Doctor Wallace?’ he asked.
‘That’s right,’ the schoolmaster confirmed. ‘The boy is named John but I understand he’s called Jack at home.’
Wallace. Doctor Wallace. Lavender hesitated. What had Mrs Tilley said about the family? That they were lodging with her while their new house was being refurbished in Market Harborough? It sounded like the Wallaces were just passing through the village, but he resolved to find out the first name of the doctor.
‘May I ask another favour of you, Mr Howard?’ he said. ‘I would like to purchase some coloured wax crayons and paper, if I may. Do you have any to spare?’ The schoolmaster did and supplied Lavender with a packet of crayons and an artist’s sketch pad.
Lavender thanked him and resumed his journey back down the hill to The Woolpack. The purchases in his coat pocket banged against his thigh as he walked.
A fire blazed in the hearth of the taproom when Lavender returned to The Woolpack, but although it took the chill off the cold, it was still a dreary place. Several powerfully built and hard-featured local men were now seated around the low tables, sipping ale, talking quietly and smoking their pipes. They glanced up when Lavender entered but made no attempt to engage him in conversation. Several sheepdogs lay exhausted across the flagstones like matted black and white rugs. The room stank of tobacco, body odour and wet dog. Susie Dicken glided amongst them in her oversized gown, giggling and flirting.
Lavender ordered a tankard of ale, found a quiet table and pulled out his ink and quill. The glassless face of the longcase clock in the corner of the room told him he had half an hour before the London mail coach would pause briefly outside the tavern on its way to the capital. He penned his letter quickly and downed his ale in one gulp when he heard the vehicle pull up outside. Grabbing his letter, he walked out into the cold street and handed it up to the coach drivers.
Frank Bunning stood beside the carriage, with a handful of letters from the mailman on the coach. ‘There’s a letter for you, Detective Lavender,’ he said.
Lavender took it, thanked him and held up the letter to the light of the lantern dangling from the side of the coach. He recognised the handwriting of Captain Rushperry.
‘Sir!’ Woods strode up the street towards him, his cheeks reddened with the cold. The two men returned to the warmth of the tavern and ordered their supper and another tankard of ale from Susie Dicken.
‘Well, that were a waste of time,’ Woods said, after the woman left the room. ‘No one recognised the money bag – I even went into the undertakers and asked them in there. There’s a windmill, some distance out of Cottingham and I didn’t make it there today, but I’ll take the horse tomorrow and ask the miller if it is his.’
‘It won’t be worth it,’ Lavender said. He had seen the windmill during his walk home from Cottingham. ‘There was a westerly wind blowing the night of the storm. I doubt the bag will have blown all the way down into Middleton from the windmill against the force of the gale.’ They kept their voices down as they talked. ‘I think the bag blew in a westerly direction from this end of the village until it caught itself in the hedge where our sharp-eyed Constable Clancy found it.’
‘Mmm,’ Woods said. ‘So it may have been used by the thieves to carry money out of Sculthorpe’s house, after all?’
Lavender nodded and took a deep gulp of his drink. ‘I think those coves found the money in that bag at Sculthorpe’s. They carried it out and divided up their ill-gotten gains further down the street, before they parted. They didn’t know about the note screwed up in the corner of the bag and threw it away into the wind.’ He picked up the letter from Captain Rushperry and split open the seal. His eyes widened as he read the contents.
‘So what about the note?’ Woods asked. ‘Did someone send it to Sculthorpe along with a payment of some kind?’
‘They may have done,’ Lavender said.
‘Was he a moneylender, do you think?’ Woods asked.
Lavender nodded. ‘You may be right. According to Captain Rushperry, Sculthorpe had the means to be a moneylender.’ He tapped the letter on the table before him. ‘He has heard back from the bankers, Messrs Down, Thornton and Gill. William Sculthorpe had one thousand and fifty-seven pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence held with them in his London account.’
Woods’ tankard stopped midair and his mouth dropped open. ‘How much do you suppose he kept in the house?’ he asked.
Lavender shook his head. ‘Unless we can find some sort of household account book we will never know. But at least young Billy Sculthorpe will be well cared for in the future. I doubt he will have to end his days in an asylum or the poorhouse.’
Woods smiled. ‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’ve got a soft place in your heart for that young man – and don’t deny it. I’ve wondered for the last ten minutes why you’ve got a sketch pad pokin’ out of your coat pocket.’
‘Nothing escapes you, Constable, does it?’ Lavender pulled the crayons and pad out of his coat and slid them across to Woods. ‘While I visit Lady Anne at Rockingham tomorrow, you can take this present to Billy Sculthorpe. Gain his trust and try and find out some more about his father. The man is an enigma and his son might have some answers to the mystery. He seemed to respond better to you.’
‘Well, as we all know – you frighten the witnesses.’
‘I’m supposed to frighten them,’ Lavender said. ‘I’m a detective.’
Woods grinned and put the crayons and pad in the pocket of his old brown coat. He picked up his tankard and had another drink.
‘What about the mushrooms?’ Lavender asked. ‘Did you find out anything about them?’
Woods belched and wiped the beads of moisture from his mouth with his coat sleeve. ‘Nothin’,’ he said. ‘None of the grocers in Middleton or Cottingham sell mushrooms. They said the villagers prefer to go out into the fields and pick their own if they want them.’
‘Which may be what William Sculthorpe did,’ Lavender said, ‘but unlike most of the villagers, he’s not country born and bred. He probably didn’t recognise the danger of those ink cap mushrooms when he harvested them.’
‘I had a bit of luck with the names of bad debtors though,’ Woods said. He glanced around to check no one was listening. ‘It’s Harry Goode – the one who helped out on the night of the murder. He’s bushed. He owes money right, left and centre throughout the two villages. There’s eleven shillin’s at the grocers on his account and another five at the drapers. One pound and eleven shillin’s with the butcher in Cottingham.’
‘He’s over there.’ Lavender nodded towards a tall, lanky man in a threadbare coat on the opposite side of the tavern. Long, greasy hair hung either side of a pair of enormous jug ears and framed a face ravaged with the smallpox.
‘What? The ugly-lookin’ fellah?’ Woods asked.
Lavender nodded. ‘He came in here about half an hour ago and I heard one of the others calling out his name.’
‘His eyes are already shinin’ with liquor,’ Woods noted. ‘So despite his poverty, he’s still drinkin’ in here every night?’
Lavender nodded. ‘I saw in the baptism registry that he’s got six children.’
‘Huh!’ Woods growled. ‘And no doubt his hungry nippers are at home in a cold house while he plies himself with brandy.’ He glowered his disapproval across the taproom. ‘Did you track down anyone with the initials J.W., by the way?’
Lavender sighed. ‘Yes. There’s a family called Wynn but they’re elderly and in the poorhouse. The only other people with a “W” surname are the Wallaces, Doctor Wallace’s family.’
‘He’s a J.W.,’ Woods said. ‘I were told by Mrs Tilley at the bakehouse. His first name is John. Doctor John Wallace, he’s called.’
‘You went back to the bakehouse?’
‘Well, I had to, didn’t I? I had to ask Mrs Tilley about the cloth bag. And his wife too,’ Woods added. ‘She’s also a J.W. She’s called Judith Wallace.’
‘Really?’ Lavender said in surprise.
‘Mind you,’ Woods said thoughtfully, ‘the note called someone an “old bastard”. That’s not very ladylike language for a doctor’s wife
, is it?’
The corners of Lavender’s mouth twitched. ‘Exactly how long did you spend with Mrs Tilley and her hot pies?’ he asked.
Susie Dicken arrived bearing two small bowls of thin stew and a couple of chunks of dry rye bread. She dumped them down unceremoniously in front of the two officers, then turned on her heel and left. The grey liquid and lumps of congealed fat swirled in the bowls and slopped over the sides. Lavender had seen more wholesome food dredged out of the mud at the bottom of the Thames.
‘So how long were you at the bakehouse?’ Lavender asked again.
‘Not long enough,’ his disappointed constable growled beside him.
Chapter Eleven
Mrs Tilley answered the door at Willow Cottage and led Lavender up the stairs to her guests’ sitting room. It was a comfortable place with a large fireplace, a thick carpet and several well-upholstered chairs and sofas. A wooden clock ticked quietly on the mantelpiece, surrounded by several china figurines.
Doctor John Wallace was a thin, slightly built man with narrow features and greying hair. He had removed his cravat and undone the buttons on his waistcoat. Mrs Wallace sat with her embroidery in her lap in the fireside chair opposite her husband. Wallace stood up to greet Lavender and held out his hand. The detective thought he saw a flash of pain cross the man’s pale face when he moved. Wallace had a limp, moist handshake.
‘Please take a seat, Detective Lavender.’ Wallace pointed to a vacant chair. He had a soft Scottish accent. ‘You won’t mind if mah wife stays? Mrs Wallace is familiar with all aspects of Mr Sculthorpe’s murder and won’t be distressed if we discuss it.’ He sat down again beside the fireside, picked up a large lawn handkerchief and coughed quietly into the material.
Lavender bowed to Mrs Wallace. She wore a fetching white lace cap bordered with a broad ruffle over her dark hair. She nodded politely in Lavender’s direction and resumed her needlework.
Lavender asked Wallace about the events of the night of the murder.
The Sculthorpe Murder Page 8
